ood of man and the
glory of God;--still more, the pardon of sin, through faith in the
atonement of Jesus Christ--a gradual advancement in true holiness--a
growing fitness and longing desire for the future blessedness of the
saints, and a final admission and "abundant entrance into the
everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour," the "inheritance
incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away;"--these are truly
to the world but as a dream, a fancy, a cunningly-devised fable; but,
to the mind of the Christian, stand for everything truly and
substantially good. They are in all his plans first and foremost, and
nearest and dearest to his heart. They are as necessary to him in his
calculation and account of human happiness, as profit and pleasure are
to his neighbours around. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the
heart conceived, the things which God hath prepared for them that love
him." But God hath revealed to _him_ by his Spirit, these very things,
as his chief good, his measure of all true happiness. Wealth may be
good, health still better, kindly affections and attached friends the
best of earthly boons; but the favour of God, the acquisition of his
image, the means of grace, and the hope of glory, are to him sovereign
and above all. While many ask, amidst the increase of their corn, and
wine, and oil, "Who will show us any good?" he exclaims, "Lord, lift
thou up the light of thy countenance upon me"--"in thy presence is the
fulness of joy; at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore." He
weighs well the nature, and "remembers the end" of all that is called
good, and so "does not amiss."

II. For, secondly, he finds that, while we so do, and so consider,
"all things work together for good to _those that love God_." There
is, first, on the mind of the Christian that secret influence in the
very disposition of love to God, which will _of itself_ turn to good
every thing that comes from the God whom we love, and the Saviour on
whom we fully and implicitly rely. And there is, secondly, a full
disposition on the part of _our heavenly Father_ so to order and
direct every event which befals his loving and attached children, as
shall be found at last to have answered the ends of sovereign wisdom
and divine mercy.

In the first instance, the tendency, _on our own part_, of love to the
great and good God will be this, namely, to turn all that befals us to
an instrument of good. As, in the healthy body, food of very